Page 124 of Don't Cross Mo Ellery

Shut UP, Merle. This guy has the worst timing.

Leslie whirls around and Hannah squeals a bit. “For ONCE could you just put me and my needs first,” Leslie hisses. “Make yourself useful and grab that crowbar.”

I shake my head at Merle, but he’s already hobbling toward the crowbar. Shit shit shit.

What is taking the cops so long?

Leslie keeps talking as she backs away holding Hannah, toward the curb, over the edge of the metal plate where only Benny’s wrists and hands are visible. “Merle, you are useless. I am sick and tired of dealing with the messes you make. I bet you haven’t even noticed the FBI rolling past the office in their unmarked windowless vans. You know who did? ME!”

Huh. Well, that’s an interesting development.

“So on top of everything else I do for you,nowI’ve got to shred—”

At that moment, Leslie trips on Benny’s forearms, he screams, and Leslie screams and stumbles, and Hannah screams as the syringe gets yanked from her neck, which has apparently gone straight into her jugular, and not in a careful way, because a thin but very steady stream of blood starts spurting out.

This is suddenly a very different kind of mess.

I race over to where Hannah’s crumpled to the ground and dive next to her, pressing my hand firmly to her neck as she stares up at me, wild-eyed. The blood is slicking her neck and my hand, and making it impossible to keep the pressure on, and (oh god) I can feel her heart beating, pumping the blood through my fingers. There’s so much blood.Not Hannah,my whole body screams as I push down on her neck.Where is that ambulance?

And the kids seem to realize it, too, that this is not the fun after-school entertainment they’d thought it was. One of them starts screaming, and almost immediately, all of them are screaming. Half the parents are trying to drag their kids away, and the other half are now taking video. Very helpful, everybody, thanks for the assist.

Meanwhile, Leslie has fallen to her knees, andthat’swhen we all hear the sirens approaching. She scrambles up, glances at the ambulance and cop car skidding around the corner, and starts to run.

I can’t leave Hannah, and clearly Leslie is faster than me anyway, but there is nowayI’m letting this woman get away.

Suddenly, my mind clears. I don’t have to chase her. I know exactly what to do. I take a huge breath and holler at the top of my lungs.

“Jean Valjean!”I yell, pulling one hand from Hannah’s neck to point at Leslie.“Treats!”

And just as I knew he would, that dog bounds over at top speed,following where I point, and leaps onto Leslie, grabbing her baby bag in his jaws. As he rips it open searching for the treats, hundred-dollar bills start to flutter out. Leslie swats and tries to spin out of his grasp, but she’s wrapped up in the strap. She whips around, and Jean clearly thinks this is a fun game because now he jumps and bats at her arm.

The one with the syringe in it.

The syringe goes into her face, right under her eyebrow. Jean noses in at exactly the wrong moment, and the plunger goes down.

Leslie screams and collapses under a pile of dogs.

EMTs rush over with their gear and pull me gently off Hannah.

I am covered in my best friend’s blood.

I watch as they start fixing her up, but she looks so, so pale. Her eyes are fluttering open and closed.

After an agonizing, endless moment, one of the EMTs looks up at me and smiles. “You did a good job,” she says. “She’ll be fine.”

Relief washes over me for exactly one second before I hear Benny calling out from underground, the strain clear in his voice. “A hand anybody? I can’t do this much longer!”

I whip around to the sinkhole and those sexy, but—for me—platonic forearms, and despite the slippery blood coating my arms and the knowledge that I am a bona fide weakling, I’m about to lie on my belly and try to pull him up, when I hear a familiar voice behind me. “We’ve got this.”

It’s Marlowe. With a firefighter.

She shrugs. “He offered to help.”

“I didn’t offer to help, kid,” the firefighter points out. “You dragged me over here.”

However he got here, he’s got a massive ladder and I am so relieved when he lowers it into the hole.

The ladder clunks to solid ground... approximately five inches below the pipe that Benny’s slipping off.